According to the prior art, commercial sale manufacture and stacking of hemmed fabric pieces (such as pockets) was for the most part a manual operation performed by workers using substantially conventional sewing machines. Quality of the hemmed fabric pieces varied among individual workers and as an essentially hand operation there were inherent limitations in quality. The work was monotonous so there was damger of injury to workers. Labor costs in this operation were high and substantial waste of material was experienced. Further, stacking of the hemmed fabric pieces (lined or unlined) presented difficulty because the hemmed end being thicker than the other end caused stacks to build up on the hemmed end tending the stacks to fall over onto the unhemmed ends opposite to the hemmed ends.
With growing popularity of stretch fabrics, knitted fabrics and bias cut woven fabrics, hemming of pockets was usually impractical and at times impossible using apparati of the prior art.
The prior art with regard to dispensers, for cutting and feeding automatically pieces of a liner tape in turn along a path, has been directed to other services. However U.S. Pat. No. 3,479,911 taught an apparatus for clamping a web of flexible material, cutting the web into increments of length and advancing the web to a work station. U.S. Pat. No. 3,465,624 disclosed a control system for a film cutter. U.S. Pat. No. 3,400,622 showed an apparatus for cutting a strip material into pieces of incremental length and included moving, feeding and shearing functions. In U.S. Pat. No. 2,722,276 strip stock was fed from a roller by means of a self-releasing self-cocking trip-type clutch. U.S. Pat. No. 2,062,643 and 2,783,042 used one-way clutches on a friction roller for feeding paper from a stack to a machine. U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,127,991 and 1,536,670 related to feeding of paper to printing presses.
The prior art on positioners, for accepting limp fabric pieces inserted manually and for positioning each of the fabric pieces automatically, was relatively remote from the teaching of this application. U.S. Pat. No. 3,360,262 taught an apparatus for transporting and aligning limp pieces of material by means of pneumatics. U.S. Pat. No. 3,544,098 employed an edge as a stop means for registering fabric work pieces.
The prior art folders, for forming a hem, are represented by U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,864,503; 3,463,482; 3,481,292 and 3,534,954.
The prior art on stackers, for stacking hemmed fabric pieces into a cartridge vertically and for revolving the cartridge as successive of the hemmed fabric pieces are inserted therein, includes references from various other fields. One reference relating to pockets is U.S. Pat. No. 3,400,841. U.S. Pat. No. 3,115,090 is directed to a packaging machine. Matches are stacked in U.S. Pat. No. 1,880,077 and ingots are stacked in U.S. Pat. No. 2,970,708. U.S. Pat. No. 3,456,423 is directed to stacking of filled envelopes and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,450,275 and 3,599,807 relate to stacking of newspapers.